The ‘robotaxis’ crowding San Francisco’s streets, and the people who hate them

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Anyone on San Francisco’s streets knows its latest technical marvel: cars moving through traffic without a driver. Until Thursday, those vehicles operated throughout San Francisco and parts of nearby cities, only charging fares with a driver present. The companies — which report mileage and collisions to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the California Department of Motor Vehicles — claim their vehicles create safer streets. San Francisco resident Cyrus Hall said that as an engineer, he thinks the companies should pause service to fix glitches and prevent accidents. Shanin Specter, an injury attorney lecturing at UC Law San Francisco, said he thinks autonomous vehicles have not been proven as safer than human-driven cars.